Should heaven burn or hell freeze over, yet the shieldmen would not let down their guard. And Maroph, knowing the strength of the guardians, spake thus in most commanding tone:

“Whoso raises his arm against Farin and his fellowship shall likewise suffer the fate of Savia the Silver, who is damned by God. You have no stake in such small skirmish. Farin of Rosgaliant is not one of your own, and does not belong in the Underworld, save by holy appointment. Put back your shields and let him by, for as my daughter may well say, Sir Farin seeks to break the curse that sits on the city in Overland.”

The unseeable guards smacked their spears across their broad breast plates.

“We are the keepers of Underworld’s deepest gates, and our way is shut. The curse shall not be broken ere the world end. Depart from me, you holy triad. An you live, I shall not see your faces.”

And Sir Farin spake:

“Who keeps the keys that bind the city in Overland?”

“The keeper of Underworld’s seas.”

“Then in good will lead us to him.”

Again the guardians refused, but Lilith fluttered forth from Farin’s breast and cast light in the darkness; and the knights were made visible, and they cowered like blinded mice.

And the goblin that bore Savia’s stained soul unleashed a cry of horrid fury, and died of fear, and Savia’s shade escaped from Lilith’s light and fluttered back across the wilderness to the confines of her castle.

And Farin raised his sword and wrought mighty works against the guardians, slaying none, for all were dead, but delivering such stinging blows that none was left unscathed, and each and every guard fled after his mistress across the vast blank wilderness, for the shores of Underworld’s seas, that lay a hundred miles off.

Now Farin’s sword was a long, slight blade, and its makers had engraved old runes into its cross guard. When he slipped it from its sheath it glimmered slight, though there was no sunlight in this world.

“I am Farin, of Rosgaliant.”

The Second Chamberlain hissed and spat, and the sinners rose from their empty pools, their filthy chains clanking like rocks. The first sinner bit at Farin’s hands, in hopes of snapping off his light fingers, but the blade slipped down the sinner’s throat and severed the chords within.

The second sinner came at Farin and its brains bled like a river, and when the blood splashed on Farin’s clothes, it burned their wearer. Farin swung once, and lopped off the sinner’s perverse head, and the head rolled off the Plateau into the far depths of the underworld.

The third sinner bounded forth like an eager child, and his overlong hands wrapped themselves about Farin’s neck in coils, and the fingers twisted up Farin’s face like ivy, in order to put out his eyes. But Farin’s blade took on its own life, and severed the hands from the sinner’s wrists, and the hands writhed and flopped to the floor like wounded fish.

The Second Chamberlain fled, and it is said that the bodies of the sinners shriveled up into pathetic piles of ash, slipping out of their chains and drifting off into the charcoal floor – though there was no wind – and never again troubled passers into the Underworld.